


Teenage Fan Club

by SakuraKatana



Category: The World's End (2013)
Genre: Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Pre-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 20:18:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SakuraKatana/pseuds/SakuraKatana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At sixteen, Sam Chamberlain wanted free-spirited romance. Her fling with Gary King seemed to fit the bill, but she thinks it might have affected her in ways she did not expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teenage Fan Club

**Author's Note:**

> Edited and improved 11/3/13, thanks to constructive criticism from goldfinch (whose fics you should go read once you've finished this one.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited and improved 11/3/13, thanks to constructive criticism from goldfinch (whose fics you should go read once you finish this one.)

“ _Adrian Keen?_ ” Kelly and Stacey say in unison and with a bit too much disbelief for Sam’s taste.

“You think _Adrian Keen_ put that chocolate bar with hearts drawn on the wrapper in your bag?” Kelly says.

Sam crosses her arms, determined to stand her ground against the twins, who are sitting at the opposite end of her bed. The end with the pillows. “As a matter of fact, I’m sure of it.”

“Why? I mean, everyone knows you’ve got a massive wide on for him-“

“Hey!”

“But why do you think _he_ put it there?” Stacey asks.

Sam’s resolve falters a bit when faced with reasonable opposition. “I, ah, I lent him in a pencil in maths, and he gave me this _amazing_ smile.”

After a moment, Kelly says, “Is that it?”

Sam uncrosses her arms and slumps. “Yes.”

The twins look at each other.

“Sam…” Stacey says.

“We know you really like Adrian,” Kelly says.

“But don’t you think this is just-“

“Wishful thinking?” they finish together.

Sam grabs a pillow from between the twins and squishes it to her chest. “How can he still just think of me as a friend? Does he just not like me that way? Can’t he see the kind of relationship I really want to have with him?”

“What kind of relationship _do_ you really want to have with him?” Kelly asks.

“Free-spirited, passionate love affair that evolves into a lifelong marriage by the time we’re thirty! I’ve told you that!” Sam answers, slightly hurt that her best friends don’t remember her most earnest dreams when she _still_ hasn’t told anyone about the time they switched places for three days.

“Sorry,” says Stacey.

“It’s quite a lot to remember,” says Kelly.

“Maybe he can’t see the kind of relationship you really want to have with him because it’s too complicated?” Stacey offers.

This is going nowhere. Sam decides to change the subject back to “Who do you think put the chocolate in my bag, then?” 

“Steven Prince,” the twins answer.

“Obviously,” Kelly adds.

“He’s totally in love with you,” Stacey insists.

“Very funny,” Sam says. “Also, ew, he’s one of my brother’s friends.”

“What’s wrong with your brother’s friends?” they ask.

Sam shrugs. “I dunno, I guess they’re alright, but I wouldn’t want to date any of them.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Sam repeats. She realizes she hasn’t really thought about it before. Come to think of it, she doesn’t know any of those guys all that well. Oliver only seems to have them over when she’s out. But it’s not fair that the twins always know more about what’s going on in Newton Haven than her, so Sam is going to defend her assumption. “Well, Peter Page is a complete pansy-“

“With a pool,” interjects Kelly.

Sam ignores that and moves on. “Steven Prince is… well, he’s nice, but he’s just kind of there, isn’t he? What does he do?”

“He plays guitar,” Stacey points out.

“He plays bass,” Sam counters. “And he’s not in love with me. And Andrew Knightly gets in fights and definitely has a thing with Becky Salt. And Gary King-“

Kelly and Stacy giggle.

Sam stares at them. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“You both just giggled when I said ‘Gary King’ – you did it again! What the hell?”

“Nothing. You’re right,” says Kelly. “He’s definitely not boyfriend material.”

“He’s disgusting,” says Stacey. 

“Awful,” says Kelly.

They giggle again. 

Sam’s eyes widen. “Oh my god, did one of you-“

“No!” the twins protest.

“If anything happened, you’d be the first to know,” promises Stacey.

They seem sincere, but Sam has to add, “But neither of you would ever do anything with him, right? You just said he’s disgusting and awful, and he is.”

“Ugh, just stop being so uptight about it and admit that he’s fit!” Stacey says, flopping backwards.

“What? No!” Although, since becoming so occupied with Adrian, Sam hasn’t really thought much about the attractiveness of other guys at school. Sure, Gary King is charismatic and popular and cool and rebellious and his face and hair are – _Oh, crumbs_.

“Sam Chamberlain, there is no way you’re the only girl in the world immune to the bad boy thing,” says Kelly, leaning forward.

Sam jerks her thoughts away from a certain person who there is no need to name or visualize. “I am _not_ the only one in school who doesn’t want to shag him; I’m just the only one in this room. I’m going to the toilet, and when I come back we are talking about something other than Oliver’s stupid friends.”

She exits her bedroom, shuts the door behind her, and runs straight into someone heading the opposite direction down the corridor. “Ugh, Oliver-“

It’s not Oliver. Speak of the devil. 

“Oh, hi, Gary,” Sam says, willing herself not to blush or do anything weird.

“Sam,” Gary King says. He looks distracted. “Hey, do you know where the fuck Oman’s phone is? I’m supposed to get it for him.”

_We’re not supposed to swear in the house,_ Sam thinks, realizing this might be part of the reason that Oliver doesn’t have friends over that often. Mum would have made millions off the curse jar. “Uh, it’s not in his room?”

“Right! Good, that was where I was headed.”

Sam nods and has no idea what to do with her hands. He really is cute. She likes how his hair is kind of floppy in front. She suddenly becomes very aware that her own hair is doing that thing she doesn’t like today.

“I can’t fucking find it anywhere!” shouts the voice of Steven Prince from downstairs. 

“That’s because it’s in his bedroom, obviously, Steven,” Gary shouts back. He goes to get the phone while Steven runs up the stairs.

“Yeah, like you-“ Steven stops dead at the top of the staircase. “Oh, hi, Sam.”

“Hello, Steven,” she says.

Sam is grateful when Gary comes back from her brother’s room a moment later. Steven’s face is really red and he’s just sort of standing there looking at her with his hands behind his back and it’s weird. She’ll have to tell the twins about this as further proof of the un-date-ability of the majority of Oliver’s friends. 

“Got it,” Gary says, wiggling the phone. “Let’s Boo Boo.”

Steven seems to snap out of it. “You got a lead in _Cabaret_ , right, Sam? Ready for rehearsals to start next week?”

“Yeah,” says Sam, slightly confused. “Why do you know when rehearsals start?”

Steven is silent for a moment, then responds, “I’m in the play too. We’re both in the play.”

“Oh! Of course! Sorry, I must have missed your name on the cast list. I didn’t notice you at auditions.”

“We…” Steven starts, but trails off and just nods a few times. He is so much weirder than she had thought before now. And clearly not in love with her, so take that, the twins.

Gary steps in to save his friend from his own social ineptitude. “Want to take this to Oman, Stevie?” he asks.

Steven nods, takes the phone from Gary, and dashes out the door.

“Sorry about him,” Gary says, leaning against the wall and nearly knocking down a family picture. “He doesn’t quite know how to handle interacting with faces as exquisitely formed as yours, you know?”

God, the amount of syllables in those words make her want to kiss him almost more than the meaning behind them. Sam hears herself giggling, and the silliness of that makes her blush. What is wrong with her? She would not have reacted like this five minutes ago! “Thanks,” she finally says.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” 

“Yeah, definitely!”

When the front door shuts behind Gary, Sam exhales and it feels like a fog lifts from her brain. What just happened, and how? Sam wasn’t one of those boy-crazy girls – well, she kind of was, but she tried not to be! Besides, she was dedicated to winning the affections of Adrian Keen, her future husband and father of her two children (both girls.) No, she would not be swayed by anything to do with Gary King. He is _not_ actively replacing Adrian in the free-spirited, passionate love affair part of her romantic fantasy. He’s disgusting and awful, and that’s that.

Sam definitely isn’t planning on bumping into him on purpose in the corridor at school.

_______

“Alright, tomorrow at – fuck!” Gary King looks down to find whoever bumped into him on his way to skipping the last class of the day. “Oh, hi, Sam.”

“Hi, Gary,” Sam says, hoping she sounds casual. She had purposefully dropped the schoolbooks she had been carrying, hoping Gary might notice and pick them up for her. Gary doesn’t seem to notice at all, so Sam resolves to just pretend the books aren’t scattered on the floor until after he walks away. “Haven’t run into you in a while.”

While Sam hasn’t physically run into Gary since that day at her house, she has had plenty of other half embarrassing, half flirtatious encounters with him. She often finds herself looking at the older boy too long when she notices him at school or around town. He always nods or waves at her when he notices. One time he winked as he walked past her and Sam thought she might have a heart attack. 

“Well, you’ve been busy, haven’t you?” Gary says. He’s smirking just a tiny bit and it is officially Sam’s new favorite facial expression ever. “Stevie’s been humming your songs all the fuckin’ time. You better watch out; I think he’s going to try and replace you.”

Sam laughs, imagining Steven Prince in her somewhat-skimpier-than-anticipated costume. And she thought she looked bad in it. “I think they might have to make some modifications to the-“

“You dropped your books, Sam,” Steven Prince interrupts. His face is red, and he is holding said books out for her.

“Oh, thanks, Steven,” Sam says, smiling at him. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.” Since they’ve been doing the play together, she has realized that he’s a lot less weird than she originally thought. He’s actually kind of sweet. She’s thinking about setting him up with one of the twins. “You can just put them on the floor if you want.”

“Uh, okay.” Steven complies. “You coming, Gary?”

“One minute,” Gary says. Sam can feel the butterflies in her stomach flutter with hope, anticipation, and definitely nerves.

“’Cause it’s your car we’re taking-“

“ _Jesus_ , Steven, time me!”

Steven starts backing away down the emptying corridor. “Alright, one minute. See you later, Sam.”

“Yeah, see you at rehearsal,” Sam says.

“You’re always at fuckin’ rehearsal,” Gary says. “Don’t you ever do anything fun?”

“I’m just busy right now,” Sam says defensively. “It’s not like I don’t know how to have a good time.”

“Oh, really.”

“Really!”

What do you like to do for fun then, Samantha Chamberlain?” Gary says teasingly.

“Probably the same types of things you like to do,” Sam replies. 

Gary raises his eyebrows. Yeah, that came out a bit differently than she expected. Sam had not considered the sexual connotations of that answer, but apparently her subconscious had. And Gary had heard those connotations loud and clear.

“You know, I think it’s fairly tragic that we’ve never taken the time to explore our common interests,” Gary says, taking a step forward, the side of his leg knocking over the stack of schoolbooks on the floor.

Sam’s confidence chooses this moment to completely abandon her. “Do you? I – I also think –“

Gary puts his hands on the sides of her face and kisses her. Sam reciprocates without thinking; the feeling of his lips on hers seems to have turned most of her brain off. She wraps her arms around his neck, and he slides his down to her back. Sam registers that it’s odd that they’re not getting in trouble, or at least getting harassed, doing this in the corridor at school… because class has started. It hits her that she’s snogging a boy – an older boy, one of her brother’s friends – in the corridor, when she should be in class. And he’s never even taken her out or told her he likes her or anything. 

Panicking, Sam breaks away from Gary. “I have to go to class!” she blurts out.

Gary shrugs. “Alright.”

Too embarrassed to look at him anymore, Sam grabs her books and runs away down the corridor to her class. She’s grateful Gary can’t see her blushing, not that it matters anymore. She has completely blown any chance she had with him. She was stupid to think things would ever work out between her and a guy like Gary King. He does whatever he wants and doesn’t care what anyone thinks, and Sam apparently can’t even break a few rules for what could have been the romance of a lifetime.

_______

By the last performance of _Cabaret_ , Sam has vowed to never wear fishnet stockings again for the rest of her life. Honestly, if she had known that people were going to get so occupied with them, she might have asked for a different part. The only person she would have wanted to make a comment about her costume was Adrian (she’s sure any communication she could possibly have with Gary after that embarrassment in the corridor would be a disaster), but he hadn’t even come to see the show. When she had asked if he was planning on seeing the play, Adrian had said that theater was for poufs. 

Relieved that the play is finally over and let down that Adrian never came to see it, Sam is purposefully the first one out of her costume. She heads straight out the back door of the building. The cast is going out together tonight, but before she can rejoin them she needs a smoke and a few minutes alone. Playing the lead might be more tiring than rewarding. Sam reaches into her coat pocket and finds that, of course, she forgot her fags at home. She sits dejectedly on the cold, concrete steps.

She smells smoke and realizes that Gary King is sitting on opposite side of the steps, looking at her. Sam has effortlessly wasted all the effort she put into avoiding him since their last encounter. At any other time this would have been nerve-wracking, but right now she’s tired, and so are the butterflies in her stomach. They do their fair share of fluttering around, but don’t have the energy to work themselves up into a frenzy.

“Hi,” Sam says, smiling faintly.

“Hey,” Gary says. 

He silently offers her a fag and a light, and she accepts both. They sit smoking in silence and Sam tries to act as cool as Gary seems to be naturally. She tries to suppress those fantasies that he managed to sneak into, and that even massive embarrassment hadn’t managed to wipe away.

“I liked you in the play,” Gary says after a while.

Sam can’t help but ask, “You liked me or you liked my fishnet stockings?”

“I liked you, and I deeply appreciated your fishnet stockings. Very sexy,” Gary answers, grinning.

Sam rolls her eyes, but inwardly melts over his smile. She can’t help it. And why not? It’s not as if she can really emotionally cheat on Adrian when he has no clue that she means to have these emotions about him.

“I heard from Steven the whole cast is going out tonight,” Gary says.

_Don't be a twat; don't read anything into this; you lost your chance, remember?_ "Yeah, to the First Post."

“Want a ride?”

“I, uh, you –“

Looking into his eyes at the exact moment she needed to think up an answer was not a good decision. His lips now have a rival in the brain-damage-causing department. But wait, him asking her that question must mean…

“Were you waiting out here for me?” Sam asks. If he wasn’t, that was a humiliating question to ask. If he was… she has no idea how to react.

“I was.”

“Why?” Sam asks reflexively.

“I thought you might want to have sex with me in the back of my car.”

Sam stares at Gary, wide eyed.

“Is that a yes or a no?” Gary asks, searching her face.

“But – but I ran away from you when we were kissing in the corridor,” Sam manages to say. 

“You said you had to go to class,” Gary points out. “You didn’t say you didn’t want to have sex.”

“I, um,” _Oh god, just spit it out, Sam!_ “Yes, I do want to have sex with you. No, I don’t want to have sex with you in the back of your car.”

“Fair enough. Come on.” Gary stands and holds out his hand.

Sam isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, but she takes his hand anyway. She’s not tired at all now, and apparently she just outright told Gary King that she wanted to have sex with him. Maybe later tonight she would swim the channel. “Where are we going?”

“The First Post,” Gary says, leading her across the car park. He walks fast and Sam has to pick up her pace so as not to be pulled along.

“Oh. Did you hear me when I said that’s where the rest of the cast is going?”

“Yeah.”

“Are we still going to have sex?”

“Yep.”

“At the First Post?”

They reach the car and Gary unlocks it. “At the First Post,” he confirms. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about the Beast.”

“What?”

“My car.”

“Oh. Where at the First Post?” Sam hasn’t done anything sexual anywhere that wasn’t somebody’s house before. She’s not sure if she’s more nervous or excited.

Gary pauses, then says, “Alright, here’s what we’re going to do. We go to the First Post; you meet up with your friends, I meet up with mine. When you’re ready, get up to go to the toilet, but go into the disabled’s. Then we’ll, you know, fuck.”

Sam processes the plan as they get in the car. She’s surprised she’s not freaking out about the possibility of getting caught. Apparently she is already pretty good at this free-spirited affair thing. Sam looks at Gary in the driver’s seat. God, he is cute. And he wants to shag her, and they’re actually going to do it.

Gary starts the car. It's so sudden and loud that it makes Sam jump a little, and she has to grin. Gary grins back. He puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her in for a kiss that might just blow her mind a little. Alright, fuck boyfriend material. She's sixteen, he's gorgeous, and they're going to go have sex in a pub toilet.

______

“Oh my _god_ ,” Sam says as she lets her back slide along the wall on her way down to sit on the floor of the First Post’s disabled’s toilet.

Gary sits next to her and stretches out his legs in front of him. “Amen.”

“I kind of can’t believe that just happened,” Sam says.

Gary turns his head to look at her. “In what way?”

“Um, in the usual way.”

Gary nods. “Do you want to do it again?”

Sam looks at him in surprise. “What, now?”

“No, in the future. Maybe in a different pub. I think the Old Familiar's got more spacious loos.”

“Oh.” Sam’s gut reaction is to say yes, but she has to ask, “Are you going to tell people about this?”

Gary laughs. “Sam, do you realize how much Oman would freak out? It would be hilarious for about a minute, before he murdered me.”

Sam thinks about that for a moment. “Do you think he’d murder me too?” 

“Nah, he’d probably just cry whenever he looked at you. So, what’s your answer?”

“Gary, I…” Sam trails off. This really isn’t a situation she thought she would ever be in. She likes being in it so far, but she doesn’t want it to get messy down the road. “You know I don’t want to be your girlfriend or anything, right?”

“Good. I don’t want a girlfriend.”

“And there’s this other guy I like –“

“Right, your massive wide on for Adrian Keen.”

“Hey!”

“That what you’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“What I’m talking about is that when me and Adrian get together then I’ll stop having sex with you!”

Gary laughs. “ _When_ you and Adrian get together?”

Sam crosses her arms. “You’re a dick.”

Gary leans over and kisses her on the cheek. “You love it. And hey, when you and Adrian start going steady I promise I won’t ever touch you ever again.”

Sam rolls her eyes, holding back a traitorous, tiny smile. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

**Author's Note:**

> The second part, which might be significantly different than what you're expecting it to be, will be up soon!
> 
> (If you're a reader of my other fic for this movie, "The Once And Future King," you may be wondering why I'm posting this instead of chapter three. The answer to that is that college got real busy and Gary's brain is exhausting and that universe requires more thinking than the pre-apocalyptic one. But chapter three is partly written and will be up within a not-crazy amount of time.)


End file.
